Ezekiel 12:6

I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.

Men and ministers

Ideas may be communicated quite as effectively through the eye as through the ear, by visible signs as by audible words. Thus our cemeteries display a profusion of emblems which eloquently, though silently, express the sentiments both of grief and of hope. Thus our sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper express the fundamental ideas of purification, brotherhood, and life through Christ, by symbols, or signs, as a visible Gospel. In like manner, a truth may be embodied, as it were in a person, who stands before his fellow men as the representative sign of an idea. This is the function of the Christian ministry today. The words applied to Ezekiel may be applied to every individual member of the Christian ministry: “I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.”

I. A sign of what? To answer, we must analyse the convictions generally entertained as to the duties of the Christian ministry. These convictions, so far as reasonable, are the judgment of the conscience of the community in concurrence with the teaching of the Scriptures.

1. In purity, he must be the man above suspicion, pure even to the verge of being puritanical, forbidding himself some things in which his fellow Church members indulge themselves without rebuke.

2. In unselfishness, he must be the man who never spares himself in doing good, never discriminating between rich and poor in an all-serving helpfulness; patient under provocation, conciliating in speech and in temper, the first to deny himself, a liberal giver, a prompt, unstinting paymaster, owing no man anything but unlimited love.

3. In truth, he must be the mirror of sincerity, both in private study and in public speech and action, aiming ever at the reality of things, not the paid advocate of a creed, not the hired mouthpiece of a church or denomination, not the echo of other men’s voices, not a professionalist in any way, but transparently representing the real and conscientiously formed convictions which he cherishes in his own heart and mind.

4. In courage, he must be no time server, or flatterer, never failing to ask, Is it right? before asking, Is it safe?--as bold for an unpopular truth as for a popular one, as plain spoken to rich sinners as to poor ones, willing, if need be, to lose a place by doing a duty, just as ready to be counted in a minority as in a majority, if only on the side of truth and right.

5. In piety is required the Christian minister’s central and vital characteristic. Together with every other required quality, men will insist on that peculiar quality in a Christian minister which is called “spirituality,” and which I may call other-worldliness--an unaffected recognition of interests that lie beyond the grave, and of the Being in whom we must trust for the hereafter.

II. But why does the general conscience require this purity, unselfishness, truth, courage, piety, in the Christian minister? Certainly not by reason of any contract between him and his brethren. He has simply contracted to be their teacher. He has not contracted to furnish a model of all the virtues at so much a year. Neither is it by virtue of any profession he has made as a Christian man. The profession that every Christian man makes is a profession of a purpose and endeavour--rather than of an actual attainment--and whatever any man professes or does not profess in the way of good endeavour, to that good endeavour he is bound whether professing it or not. Why, then, this demand of the public conscience upon the Christian minister, except that, simply as a man teaching men, he in his position must be what every man in any position should be; must stand as a sign of the character that God requires of all? I ask you, then, my friends, to exalt your requirements of character in Christian ministers to the very highest, insisting only on those real excellences, which are displayed in that one only pattern of a perfect human life which God has given us in Jesus Christ. When you have done it, and formed a true and high ideal of the character that the Christian ministry should possess, then you have simply figured to yourself what a true man should be among men, independently of any contract, or profession, or endeavour after consistency. And the minister whom you expect to live up to that ideal is set to be God’s sign to you for your own living. Whatever would spot his skirts in God’s sight, will spot yours. Whatever you would be sorry to see him do, you should be sorry to see yourself do.

III. Further suggestions.

1. The danger of the clerical profession to society. What this danger is, may be illustrated by the answer which I dare say many a person would give, if asked why a Christian minister should pray, “Why, it is his business to.” The subtle fallacy in that word, “his business,” is no small drawback to a minister’s influence for good, and the only way he can offset it is by that high personal character which the most unspiritual men must admit to be everybody’s business.

2. The Divine end in the institution of the Christian ministry is the formation of right character. What we need most is to take our grand and beautiful and vital truths out of showcases, and put them on as everyday clothing. Let us insist that those shall do this whose privilege it is to make these truths their especial study, and to exhibit them to others. But remember, that in so doing they are but a sign of that which is required of all.

3. The alleged decline of the influence of the Christian ministry is a real gain be its influence on character. A fallacy has gone out and a truth has come in. When the Christian minister has been brought down from his former fictitious elevation to his proper level of a man among men, then the spiritual rule by which he is judged is brought down to be the rule for all. This is a solid gain for the power of conscience, when the high expectations which the congregation press upon their minister are perceived to declare the obligations which press equally upon every one of them as the servant of God. (J. M. Whiten, Ph. D.)

Sign making lost among modern prophets

He was to be performing a very singular act, and to be so constantly doing it that people would say, What is he doing now? He is moving things: what is the madman after today? Watch him:--he brings forth his stuff in their sight; he goes forth at even in their sight; he digs through the wall in their sight; in their sight he bears the burden upon his shoulders and carries it forth in the twilight (i.e. in the dark)

; he covers his face that he may not see the ground. The Lord makes this use of the man that by an act singular, absurd, irrational, unaccountable, he may attract attention, so that the people may say, What is it? It is thus the preachers would do if they dare. The preacher has lost his power of sign making, and he has taken now to sentence making. The preacher should always be doing something that attracts the religious attention of mankind. He should be praying so unexpectedly and vehemently as to cause people to say, What is this? But he dare not. Quietness has been patented, and indifference has been gazetted respectable. They are right who beat drums, sound trumpets, fly flags, tramp the streets like soldiers taking a fortress, so that people shall say, looking out of high windows and round the street corners, What is this? what are these men doing now? “It may be,” saith the Lord,--“it may be they will consider.” But they can only be brought to consideration by sign and token, by madness on the part of the Church. Trust the Church for going mad today! The Church now locks up its premises six days out of seven, and blesses the man who occupies it as little as possible on the seventh day. Rebelliousness overfloods the fading energy and zeal of the Church. (J. Parker.)